, sheila martin's husband. >> our children were down on the floor. if we would have been standing up, we would have been hit. >> tell them there are children and women in here and to call it off. >> all right, all right. hello? i hear gunfire. oh, shit. >> reporter: it was a raid by the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. >> hello. >> call it off! >> who is this? >> reporter: atf agents trying to arrest david koresh and search the branch davidian compound. the operation that winter morning was the culmination of an eight-month investigation. feds believed koresh was illegally converting semi-automatic ar-15s, like this one, into the fully automatic machine guns soldiers use. the federal agents had rented a house across the street, posing as college students, trying to buddy up to koresh. but he never bought the act. >> we knew we were being watched from across the road. we knew there was some kind of government agency -- agents over there. >> reporter: atf planned a military-style raid, what they call dynamic entry. it hinged on the element of s